Pieces of a Beast
by Fairytale Warrior
Summary: When the bad guy pulls out a gun, instincts shift and pain becomes an irrelevant obstacle to be dealt with later. But while he's shattered into pieces of himself, trapped in the throes of fever-dreams, and struggling to put it all back together the Titans are each there to listen.
1. Bullet-shaped Mistakes

_I'm not sure who I think I'm sharing this story with. This fandom seems pretty dead to me._

* * *

 _Gun fire._

 _3 bullets._

 _A black rhino instead of a turtle._

 _Sirens._

 _Shouting._

 _Wheezing, gasping for air._

 _Abrupt silence..._

"…doesn't look too good," a voice brought Beast Boy back to consciousness. He was too tired and sore to groan – too tired and sore to even open his eyes. But he didn't need to have his sight to sense that his friends were nearby.

"I shouldn't have let him go. I can't believe I didn't see that this would happen." He recognized Robin's voice and was semi-startled by his proximity. It sounded like he was right above him. He flinched.

"Sshh!" Starfire hissed loudly, voice drawing closer, "You will wake him!"

"You're not any better," the dull, apathetic droll of Raven's voice came from a divot near his feet that he hadn't noticed before.

Without thinking about it, Beast Boy took a soft but deep and contented breath, happy that his friends were there. It hitched hallway through, pain sprawling across his chest like ice cracking under the burning weight of sudden heat. He cringed and the relaxed sigh became a wheezy hiss. With numb and uncooperative limbs he tried vainly to curl into himself.

There was a long silence, the titans holding their breath in fear of their friend's waking.

"Beast boy…? Cyborg's voice was so hushed and tentative it was like he was hiding from a monster.

The youngest titan was too fatigued to even think about opening his eyes, let alone trying to engage in conversation so it didn't even occur to him that he should reply.

Unfortunately, Beast Boy hardly ever thought about whether he should or shouldn't open his mouth.

"Hmnnn," he groaned and cringed tightly, every muscle aching, as he tried to open his eyes. Both efforts felt like fire – like he'd completed the longest, most arduous triathalon of his life just a few hours prior and his muscles were bulging with gas bubbles. "It iz time tah gedup?" he croaked, his tongue feeling swollen in his mouth.

He had thought that he'd fallen asleep in the common room but the ceiling didn't quite look right. His vision was so blurry though he might as well have been blind.

A blur – blue, grey, with a glowing red dot off the center – shot in front of his eyes. As it spoke with a voice like Cyborg's the figure split into several clones of veritable opacity and saturation that each began to float away from their origin. The other various things hanging around above him did the same thing but it wasn't as bad. Each movement Cyborg made left a trail of these confusing after images behind.

It was like one of those animated cursers from an old windows 2000s computer.

Through thick sheets of fabric something patted his hand. He wondered if he could move it and tried, expecting the task to be easier for whatever reason. It felt like he was trying to move through molasses and when he tried a little harder his whole hand jerked, agony climbing across his muscles and cutting them up like unraveled, tightened spools of twine in an old textile machine. The pain punched him so hard it forced a gasp out of his lungs

Cyborg – or whoever had been touching his hand – withdrew, looking worried.

"No, BB," Cyborg said, answering his earlier question, "You don't have to wake up yet. Go back to sleep."

But the air was suddenly suffocating with the thickness of fear and worry and anxiety.

Fear meant many things to Beast Boy and none of them were good.

Animal instincts in response to that fear were what held him in a net of consciousness. Without knowing it he reverted back to his first language.

"Kuna ni kitu… fu-fulani- hnng! – …v-vib-aya," he huffed, adrenaline seeping into his bloodstream, "Nini kinaendelea…?"

"-east Boy?"

"Spe-…-ing gibberish- …- alm-…own!"

"-ey, hey-…-ight-….k?-….-ome o-…-be-…-me"

The words around him blended together until he no longer even recognized the language anymore.

"Ku-s-saidia…"

* * *

Someone was speaking.

Someone was stroking his forehead.

Someone was telling him everything was going to be alright and that he needed to go back to sleep.

He didn't understand why they thought he was awake to begin with.

* * *

Someone was screaming.

Someone was crying and begging.

Someone was holding a gun – an SKS semi-automatic rifle.

 _Bang! Bang! Bang!_

The cries cut off, interrupted by panicked, wet, gurgling sounds. Dark, syrupy splashes of blood slapped the dry road. Distant explosions threw out powerful vibrations in the air, bruising skin and tearing through his eardrums.

Faces – familiar faces – open-mouthed, haunted and glassy eyes, bodies limp like fleshy, rubber Ndebele dolls fitted with gangly arms and legs.

He was crying out their names, trying to reach for them but unable to move.

Stop it –

 _Bang! Bang! Bang!_

Please, Nyambe -

 _Bang! Bang! Bang!_

I'm begging you, please stop - !

 _Bang! Bang! Bang!_

The name burst from him like a pressurized bubble of hot air; _Robin, stop it!_

But Robin didn't stop. Like the image of his leader holding that SKS, forever burned into Beast Boy's retinas, he stayed…

…and kept shooting.

* * *

 _I_ was _going to write a footnote but again, not expecting this thing to get any kind of attention so eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh._

 _Oh, hell, fine:_

 _(Swahili)_ Kuna ni kitu fulani vibaya: _There is something wrong._

 _(Swahili)_ Nini kinaendelea?: _What's going on?_

 _(Swahili)_ Kusaidia: _Help_


	2. The Boy Wonder

_Huh. I guess this fandom still has a heartbeat left after all. I'll answer all those reviews later tonight. :)_

 _Update 10/8: Reviews have been answered and chapter has a few little corrections._

* * *

Anything – _anything_ would be better than this. Robin would rather return to Batman's care than endure another _second_ of _this._

"Ss- nngh – op," Beast Boy's voice was raspy and weak, half-words forced out between breathless gasps for air. "-l-ease!"

As cool as the leader of the Teen Titans looked on the outside, on the inside was a hurricane of emotional strain.

Screw whatever the damn clock said, Robin was convinced that this had been going on for _hours._

"Stop i-..-it- agh!" the plea and the gasp made him want to hunt down the guy that had done this and tear him to bits himself despite knowing that it would do no good to anyone.

This should never have happened – he should never have _let_ this happen. He should have seen that something was wrong.

Robin had practically grown up in Gotham, a place where criminals both petty and clever ruled the streets. He could read body posture like it was his first language and the number of times he'd seen people pull out guns should have left an imprint on him too strong to ignore.

And yet, after so much time in Jump, after so much time around villains that preferred their own flamboyancy to the simple, ruthless efficiency of weapons like guns, he had somehow fallen out of practice.

Out of the corner of his eye he'd seen the figure but he'd been too busy – with what he couldn't even remember. Whatever it had been hadn't been important enough to allow something like _this_ to happen.

Beast Boy's panting could have echoed in the room. The pained little sounds that cracked out of his extended throat sent shocks of guilt and worry through the raven-haired teenager.

"Damnit," he hissed, lowering his head into his hands. "Cyborg, what are you doing?" Because of Beast Boy's unique, though tenuous, genetic coding, Cyborg couldn't give him the regular dosages of opioids like morphine and oxycodone.

The resident robotic medical technician was more worried about the effectiveness of the antibiotics and though Robin felt similarly he wasn't sure how much longer this could last. Currently, Cyborg was busy trying to engineer medicine specifically for Beast Boy but until then…

"-eaah –un - no-!"

Robin winced.

Until then, it was all he could to make sure Beast Boy wasn't alone.

The youngest member on his team wriggled weakly, pushing his head back into the pillow, clenching and unclenching his fists, and slowly, feebly, kicked his feet like he was trying to push himself away from the pain.

Robin clasped his hands together, the gloves squeaking against each other. He looked over the bed's occupant.

Things had at least been semi-manageable before the fever had taken hold of Beast Boy. Sure, they were down two team members out in the field – Robin wanting at least one person to be with the green changeling at all times – but he could've worked that out. He could have called in a few reinforcements from Titan's West to help fill the gap. But now that both Cyborg _and_ Raven were needed at the tower Robin had been forced to stitch together a working team that could substitute for them in their absence.

As strong as Starfire and Robin were, they couldn't do much without the rest of the team.

Furrowing his brow Robin spent a few moments anticipating the arrival of a few Titans he'd asked to do just that until Beast Boy recovered.

The tendons in the changeling's throat worked a gasp out of his lungs before the word; "-hurt-s"

And that was when Robin had had enough.

Standing with a little more force than was strictly necessary, he flew across the room to the sink and took off his gloves. Quickly washing his hands before taking a towel from one of the lower drawers, he ran it under cold water, half-wrung it out, and briskly returned to the young teen's side.

Robin folded the towel and gently laid it across Beast Boy's eyes, pressing it down snugly. Trapped in the torturous throes of his feverish nightmare the boy's hand shot out and his head pushed back against the pillows.

"No! Don' – ungh," he gasped, chest ballooning outwards with every frantic breath, "Don' -urt…-em!"

A force took hold of Robin that he didn't totally recognize.

He reached out and grabbed his friend's hand firmly, letting green fingers curl around his own with a desperate grip that almost made him wince.

"Easy, Beast Boy," he hushed him, pressing down a little more against the towel and taking a few deep breaths for himself, "You're safe. No-one will hurt you."

The changeling clenched his jaw a moment before releasing it and mumbling indistinctly.

"N-am-eh!" Robin bit his lip, "Stop…Robin!"

Robin just couldn't keep his cool façade anymore – not when his youngest, most inexperienced teammate had started calling to him for help.

"I'm here," it felt like something was squeezing his heart, coiling around it and wringing out all the saturated emotions it had, "I'm right here, BB."

Either it wasn't a sufficient reassurance or his comrade couldn't hear him because his words did nothing to quell Beast Boy's fear-filled struggles.

"Robin – ease-!" he continued his pleading.

"I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere. It'll be ok, I promise you it will." Robin tried fervently to comfort him, wanting so badly to help the friend calling out for him.

Beast Boy needed him.

He needed him and yet all he could do was stand there, holding a cool cloth over his eyes and squeezing his hand like _he_ was the one in pain.

Robin had never in his life felt as helpless as he did right then.

"N-o-!"

The black-haired teen tried to swallow back the painfully thick lump in his throat, gripping Beast Boy's hand tightly.

Nothing could have prepared him for the intensity of the next moment.

"Robin, stop it!" The words burst out the sick changeling like a popping balloon in a quiet room. It was the clearest, loudest, most desperate thing Beast Boy had said and it might as well have torn the poor Titan leader's heart apart. "Pl-eze, don," a mighty gasp filled his sweaty chest, "-urt- nngh!"

The Boy Wonder distinctly felt himself blanch, all the color washing out of his face like a wave of heat that drained down his neck. He almost couldn't swallow past the lump in his throat this time. It felt like he was choking. He gave Beast Boy's hand a squeeze. "Ok," he said thickly, a weight worse than the most crushing of defeats he'd ever experienced settling on his shoulders, "Ok. Ok, I'm sorry. I'll stop. I'll never do it again, I swear. I'm sorry." He bowed his head, shame worming around inside his stomach, "I'm so sorry."

Poor Beast Boy was buried too deeply to hear him.

* * *

 _Everyone :) is :) suffering :)_


	3. The Raven

It was the early hours of the morning, long before the sun would rise, and Raven hung suspended in the air next to Beast Boy's bed meditating calmly.

Technically, Robin hadn't asked her to stay up with their injured teammate.

Technically, he hadn't asked anyone to.

Raven thought that was because he just didn't need to.

"Azarath, Meterion, Zinthos," she hummed quietly, fighting her own inner turmoil. She might never admit it to Beast Boy's face but she was deeply concerned for him.

His emotions were traumatizing.

His fear penetrated every corner of the tower and threatened her fragile control.

But just as she'd been heading to find Cyborg, intent on imploring him to put Beast Boy under, she'd been intercepted by Robin.

Face a little bit flush he'd taken one look at her and said, "I'm taking care of it." Waves of grief had been rolling off him so thickly Raven had been in momentary awe of his outwards stoicism.

Then something too intense to just be fear had punched her in the chest. The feeling was white hot and blinding - like someone had bottled up her worry, sadness, self-loathing – and poured it into a volumetric flask.

The thought hadn't even finished crossing her mind before Raven found herself pooling across the infirmary floor and then rising from the inky mass of shadows like her teleportation was nothing more than a particularly slow elevator. Consequently, she startled poor Starfire right out of her wits. The extraterrestrial was already a little put off about something but Raven didn't have the energy to deal with it.

Beast Boy lay supinely in his bed, twitching and writhing weakly. He was still sweating, slurring words between English and gibberish that _almost_ sounded like a language. Though still sick and wounded, his heart monitor kept its quick, thready beat.

Coming to the realization that Beast Boy was, in fact, still alive and that he had not, in fact, died as Robin's emotions had implied, she realized how silly she must have looked.

Giving poor Starfire no explanation at all she swept up her cape and disappeared again.

Needless to say it had been a rather eventful afternoon until Cyborg finally administered enough morphine to get Beast Boy to settle down.

It had to have been at least an hour after Raven had taken over for Starfire when a change in the atmosphere tore her fragile sense of peace and the strangled sound of Beast Boy's voice broke more than just the silence.

"K-ku-" he swallowed a lump in his throat and coughed, both sounds feeble, "Kuk-o-mez-hah."

At first she thought it was just the randomized garble from before.

"O-ooko …wa-…-api?"

And like before, his words almost- _almost_ – came together to sound like a language.

Patiently, Raven waited for the moment to pass and for her friend to settle. She'd come to expect little, brief rises to feverish consciousness like this every once and a while. The empath was thankful they didn't last too long.

The wheezy whispers of air entering Beast Boy's trachea filled the silence of the room for a few minutes and Raven thought he was falling back into the depths of his dreamless sleep when he called out.

"R-..av-…," he coughed, "-en…?"

It might have been callous and selfish but it wasn't the first time he'd called her name so she kept her eyes closed and mumbled; "Go back to sleep Beast Boy."

"R-Rae…?" he tried again, voice quavering.

The empath took a deep breath, but found herself unable to disregard him a second time. She opened her eyes and turned to the prone figure she safeguarded through the night.

"What?" Raven asked.

A white cloth had been draped over his eyes, catching beads of sweat and helpfully keeping him calm throughout his fever-induced fits. It felt so strange to be unable to see those big green eyes.

It took a long time before Beast Boy had enough air and energy to speak again. "Wh'rz…," he took a deep breath, "R-rob-pin?"

"He's sleeping. Do you need him?" Raven set her feet on the ground, ready to fetch their leader. Or better yet, Cyborg. She wasn't too great at this sort of thing.

A cloudy blast of fear billowed out of Beast Boy like a sudden gale. "No!"

Raven recalled Cyborg saying something about BB calling out to Robin, begging him to stop doing something but never explaining what. Robin himself had looked tormented later that night when she'd caught him taking out his pent-up emotions on a practice dummy. His face had been lined with the open horrors of a grief-stricken veteran.

He'd looked so confused and angry with himself but she just hadn't known what to say so she'd left him alone.

Thinking back to earlier the day before, she had noticed that Beast Boy's fear lessened when Robin wasn't in the room with him.

It was almost like-

"Beast Boy, are you afraid of Robin?"

A pale green fist clenched around the sheets it lay on but Raven wasn't given a verbal response. The changeling held a torrent of emotions; fear, grief, betrayal, and crushing defeat among them. That was all the answer the empath really needed.

Unsure of what to make of this revelation Raven came closer to his bed.

"You know he would never hurt you." She tried to keep her voice gentle and soft but instead it sounded more like her usual apathetic droll, like she didn't actually care either way.

Again Beast Boy didn't reply.

In silence, Raven watched him. His mouth was slack and open. The movement of every breath he took reminded her of a bellow slowly breathing into a fire. Looking at all the monitors he was hooked up to coupled with the wheeze of his trachea fighting for air, Beast Boy looked more machine than animal. His skin reminded her of an odd kind of mint paste; sickly and so, so pale. Under the bright lights of the infirmary he looked sweatier than before.

Of all the ways to find out her healing art had a specific weakness against metals used to make bullets, this was the worst by far.

She realized he hadn't spoken for a while.

"Beast Boy?"

Raven was answered only by the steady labor of his rasps.

The demoness stepped even closer to his bed, reaching out before she could stop herself. Pale gray hands hovered over his chest for a moment but did nothing more while she deliberated. After about a minute, she made her decision, and her hands ghosted up to land on either temple.

" _Sleep,"_ her voice was laced with a powerful spell, one that gently dragged her friend away from consciousness.

* * *

 _(Swahili) kukomezhah = Kukomesha:_ stop

 _(Swahili) Ooko wapi? = Uko wapi?:_ where are you?


End file.
